where words collide

career

I haven’t written anything in quite a while because I’ve been stifled. I’ve been stifled by the assholes of the world, including myself, and have retreated into a dark hole that sucks the creativity out of me with a force that knocks me off of my feet.

I am clawing my way out of this hole, making small progress each day until the time comes when I won’t feel its sharp nails sinking into the flesh of my mind. Maybe that day will come soon. I can only hope that it does.

I’ve been thinking about how to hold onto my creative voice a lot lately, and this is what I’ve come up with:

People are dicks. People judge, people lurk in the figurative shadows waiting to find that one piece of information to throw in your face. People fucking suck, but how does one rise above it? How do you continue to write/create without fear of being judged by others?

The time has come in my life to do what makes me happy. I have to take a step back sometimes and look at my existence from the outside to know that it really doesn’t matter what anyone else thinks. People will always judge me for what I write, how I write it, and I can’t change that. I can only love myself, live my life, and strive each day to give zero fucks.

Follow me, friends.

I honestly don’t think there’s anyone out there who truly believes in me, except for myself, of course. My fiancé has brought up the fact that I may never sell one copy of any of my books (already sold two, bitch). He supports my writing, but has no confidence that I will be able to make a living doing it.

There are times when his lack of faith in me makes me feel like shit. I mean, he is the person I plan on marrying one day, and if anyone in the entire world believed in me, you’d think it would be him.

I try to shake his negativity off. I try to work as hard as I can. I try to write the best chapters of my life in the hopes that I will be able to prove all the non-believers wrong. I will make a living writing, or I’ll die trying.

I’m sure this is an issue for many of you who are pursuing your dreams, and so I look around at the successful people in the world and remember that there were people who didn’t believe in them either.

Follow me, friends.

The Top 5 Worst Aspects of Working from Home

5. Motivation

It can be quite difficult to motivate yourself to be productive when you work from home. There are no supervisors breathing down your neck, just you and your own determination, which can be hard to muster up from time to time.

4. Procrastination

Not only is procrastination my middle name, but it’s also a huge problem for me in my work from home projects. I put my important tasks off so that I can do the ones I enjoy. Then I put them off a bit more. And those tasks that I really don’t want to do? They never get done.

3. Distraction

I have two weird little dogs and a fiancé that provide plenty of distractions for me during my “work” day. There are times that I welcome the distractions, but there are others when they can be extremely frustrating. From movies playing on our bedroom television to the maintenance man knocking on our door, working from home means you will never be free from all outside interferences.

2. Less Respect for your Designated Work Time

This is a HUGE one for me, as even when I tell my family that I’m working, I still receive phone calls, texts, emails, etc. When I worked for someone else, they knew not to contact me. However, working from home seems to make them think that I’m available all the time.

1. Pay Cut

I make a lot less money working from home than I did at my traditional jobs. For me, I still prefer to work from home as it gives me a sense of independence, and allows me to control my anxiety in ways that I could not when I worked for someone else.

For me, there are still a ton of positive aspects that outweigh the negatives mentioned above, but if you’re thinking of getting into a work from home situation, it wouldn’t hurt to keep this list in mind.